1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a guidance/control device using gas jets by means of at least one rotating, movable nozzle in order to create one or more thrust forces enabling the guidance of a carrier in a determined direction.
A guided carrier notably has propulsion means that operate on the entire trajectory of the carrier or on a part of this trajectory, means designed to measure the deviations in the trajectory of this carrier with respect to the position of a designated target and guidance/control means enabling the deviations to be corrected. The deviations in the trajectory of a guided carrier can be corrected by the application of a thrust force to a determined point of the carrier. This thrust force may be created by aerodynamic devices or by pyrotechnical devices such as gas jets. A device for guidance/control by gas jets, designed to modify the trajectory of a carrier, comprises an energy source that generates a gas flux, a set of one or more nozzles distributed on the body of the engine, and a means enabling the gas flux to be routed according to control commands available on board the carrier so as to create a resultant thrust force with a determined magnitude and direction.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are already known approaches to attain the above-mention goals. These include:
the use of one or more (fixed) nozzle(s) wherein a flux of gas is directed as required, the position of said nozzle(s) corresponding to the desired maneuver. This approach entails making a very complicated device for switching over the gas flux, and the difficulty of making it increases with the magnitude of the thrust force exerted by the gas flux;
the use of a nozzle that pivots on a toggle joint located on an axis parallel to the axis of the carrier; in this case, problems of imperviousness arise at the link between the nozzle and the toggle joint;
the use of a single fixed nozzle with the positioning of the carrier in such a way that the axis of this nozzle is properly oriented. This approach results in a maneuver of the carrier prior to the application of the desired force: this may lead, in particular, to reaction times that are incompatible with the guidance equations used;
the use of a nozzle pivoting on a point generally located on the axis of the engine in the vicinity of the propulsion units of the carrier with a very small angular clearance. In this case, the forces used are tapped from the thrust force of the motor. This results, firstly, in a modification of the direction of the forces and, secondly, in guidance and control that is limited to the period of operation of the main motor.
The aim of the invention is to overcome these drawbacks by proposing a guidance/control device making it possible for a thrust force, coming from a continuous gas flux within a fixed nozzle, on a nozzle unit, to obtain different motions of the carrier depending on the orientation of the thrust force, the latter having at least one radial component, i.e. one located in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the carrier.